Whumptober No. 8 EVERYTHING HURTS AND I'M DYING
Stomach Pain | Head Trauma | Back from the Dead
This one gets pretty dark, but I hope you enjoy! It's my fave Whumptober oneshot I've written so far :D
Luke's ears perked up when he heard the footsteps walk past his quarters and pause just outside the door. "Piett?" he called hopefully. "Don't be a stranger."
There was a sigh, but Piett would never refuse a direct order from his lord's son. He opened the door and stepped inside, flashing a smile at Luke that told him he was exhausted.
"You look tired," Luke said helpfully.
"I am well. It is irrelevant in the face of—"
"—serving the great and glorious Empire," Luke droned, pulling a face. Piett tensed, watching him, like he always did when Luke talked like this. His father said Piett was rigid, but at least he was rigidly loyal. "You can serve the Empire better when you're well rested, you know. When was the last time you chatted with anyone?"
Piett stepped inside and, knowing what Luke would ask of him, sat stiffly on the sofa opposite Luke. Luke took his feet down from where he'd been enjoying the view of the Executor laid out below him against a brilliant backdrop of stars.
"General Veers and I discussed coordination with his troop movements over caf this morning."
"That's not a chat."
"General Veers and I are friends."
"I know." Veers was another person who always seemed uptight and angry around Luke, but Luke figured that was because he was friends with Zev, and Zev was no longer here. It wasn't personal to him—they hadn't spoken in years, and he was left with distant memories of playing with a dark-haired teen with a wispy moustache on a sandy beach—but it was naturally personal to Veers. "But that's still not a fun chat."
"We do not have time for idle chit chat in war, sir," Piett informed him.
"Clearly not, considering how tense you look just at this. How is Veers anyway? Is he missing Zev?"
Piett stiffened further. "Any father would miss a son who betrayed him to the Rebels."
"I know," Luke said softly, moving his hand to his stomach. "I can't imagine it." He tried to—he'd wanted to be a pilot before his medical issues kicked in, so he tried to imagine a world where his father didn't need to coddle him constantly, and his self-righteousness outweighed his sense. The Rebels wore those awful flightsuits, Luke knew; he pictured himself wearing one as he walked between X-wings. Maybe Zev would be there too: a dark-haired man coming out of the forest of X-wings to laugh at him.
Luke shook his head. Ridiculous. He could never betray his father like that. "I really can't," he repeated. "It seems just cruel to General Veers. I hope he's alright—I get the sense he doesn't like me."
"He respects you immensely."
Luke raised his eyebrows. "As Vader's son, and Vader's son only."
Piett said, "Sir, you're bleeding."
"What?" Luke jerked up, then looked at his torso. The hand resting over his stomach was soaked in blood; it had trickled onto the sofa; now that his thoughts came back to the present, he wanted to vomit.
Nausea and pain fought for dominance. Before Piett could catch him, Luke doubled over with full body shudders. Not again. Not again…
"Where is your medication, sir?"
"'Fresher. Top shelf of cabinet." He winced against the pain and tried to ground himself with something—anything—as his head started to pound as well. Knives drove into the back of his skull, but he tried to focus, focus, focus on anything that didn't feel like having his head cleaved in two…
Piett was in front of him again with a glass of water. Luke was shaking enough that when he tried to drink, water and pills spilled all over his front. Piett cursed and tried again; this time, the medication splashed into Luke's mouth, and he swallowed dryly, like there was a lump in his throat. Familiar darkness began to creep in around the edges of his vision, but Piett was there. When Luke clutched for his arms for support and comfort, Piett awkwardly clutched them back.
Piett knew what to do.
Luke woke up to a cool hand on his forehead and more water being pressed down his throat. He coughed, turning his hand, but the aftertaste of his headache punished him for even that tiny motion.
"Be careful," his father ordered, pressing his hand harder onto Luke's head. It pushed Luke's head right back, but he let it happen. His father's presence folded around him, and he immediately started to feel better. Pain was immaterial in the face of such comfort and love.
"It's been two weeks," Luke croaked. "That was longer than usual. I thought…"
"That they would not return," Vader finished, lowering the glass of water. "I had hoped so. It appears not. I will consult with the doctors further about why your body seems intent on tearing itself apart."
Luke could sense his anger, frustration, self-hatred. He reached out a weak hand to rest on Vader's arm. "You're doing all you can, Father. I'm glad you came so quickly."
Vader took his weak hand and squeezed it. "Always," he vowed.
There was something off about that—too intense, though his father was always intense. Luke frowned. "What's wrong?"
"The Emperor has ordered me on a mission away from Death Squadron. If I do not want to risk suspicion, I must leave you."
Luke nodded, though his heart twisted. "You don't want him looking too closely and finding me."
"That would be catastrophic." Luke heard the unspoken words: While you are in this condition.
"I can fight," he insisted. "You've trained me for years—"
"Not now. I will not lose you because your condition flared up at the wrong time."
Luke swallowed, but he couldn't disagree. "When do you have to leave?" he asked quietly.
"Two hours ago."
"Then go!" He pushed him back, his strength starting to return. "Don't risk it all for sentiment."
"I try not to," Vader drawled, but Luke sensed his worry—and again, his self-hatred—as he stood, turned, and headed towards the hangar.
Luke touched the back of his head, then his stomach. Both fine. The skin of his stomach was smooth and new, but at its centre was the scar again that these incidents always left. He ran his fingertips over the white and pink ridged tissue.
Piett led him back to his room, his expression pained. Luke could walk on his own, but sometimes it was nice being supported, especially if he didn't have his hovering father around and didn't need to prove his own independence to him. Before the door to Luke's quarters slid shut again, Piett's grave expression gave way to the first words he'd said to him during the trip:
"Sir," he started, "I swear. We will find and punish the Rebels responsible for this."
With those baffling words, the door shut, and Luke was left staring after him.
It struck again days later—far sooner than he could ever have predicted—in the middle of the night. Luke awoke from a vivid dream with his head in a vice, squeezing, squeezing until his brains felt ready to pop out of his ears. Blood drenched the bedsheets. He slammed the emergency alert button beside his bed—it would alert his father's comlink, but also Piett's if his father was absent—and stumbled out of bed, immediately collapsing to the floor.
He couldn't move for several long moments, bent over double as if in prayer. Tears flooded as freely as the blood did.
He couldn't stay here. He had to move. Slowly, agonisingly slowly, he crawled towards the door of his bedroom that led to the 'fresher. When he switched from carpet to tiled floor, the cool, smooth surface sent a shock through his system, and went slippery with his blood. He forced himself onto his knees, staggered to his feet, reached for his medication, teetering—
And fell. The bottle fell with him, spilling over the floor. Luke cursed as his head hit the tiles; for a moment, his vision shorted out like a sabotaged holocam. The pain grew sharp and acerbic, the back of his head almost caving in…
What the hells had caused this? Why had this come on in his sleep? That had never, ever happened before. He'd been dreaming—dreaming very vividly about a woman with braided hair. His father said he used to have dreams of his mother, a brown-haired senator, so maybe that was it. But she was young in his mind's eye, the same age as him, and fierce as they threw ideas back and forth.
It must be his mother. Luke had never known her, but perhaps some distant imprint of being held against her chest let his brain concoct such an image. Perhaps she was still watching him through the Force—perhaps, like his father said so often, she was indeed proud of him.
Proud of a son currently wallowing in his own blood, vision black and red from pain.
It was that thought that finally propelled him to grope around and seize a pill, any pill, from the plethora on the 'fresher floor. He swallowed it dry—or, not dry, because it had his blood on it—and lay back, letting his hair get drenched crimson as he waited for it to kick in.
He should ask his father about this, he thought dully, his vision spinning. His father would know why that dream was so much like a memory.
When Luke woke up, his father was there again. He always was, but—
"You're supposed to be away," Luke croaked.
"You almost died," Vader responded tersely. "You have been unconscious for five days."
"Five days?"
"Piett has kept you in stasis in bacta to prevent your injuries from growing worse. When I returned we were able to devise a plan to improve them, which is the only reason you are now awake."
Luke swallowed. "Thank you for coming," he whispered. "Did you—"
"My task was thankfully already complete. I had another to complete immediately afterwards, but the Emperor will forgive me a brief journey back to my ship between them. Even if he would not, I would have come."
"Thank you," Luke said again.
"How are you feeling?"
"As bad as always." His headache had faded to an echo, but it was a loud echo, nonetheless. "It lasted longer before the pills kicked in this time." Luke had never quite grasped what they did, other than knock him out so he didn't have to feel the pain. They seemed to arrest his deterioration at the very least. "I spent a lot of time on the floor."
"I have seen the state of your quarters. Were you in bed? Did it catch you off-guard?"
"I was asleep," Luke said. "It's… never happened to me while I was sleeping before." His head jerked; the spike of pain that that caused made him wince. "I meant to ask you—I had a dream…"
His father put his hand on his forehead. "Drink," he intoned, holding up a glass of water. "You do yourself no favours in how you treat your injured body."
Luke rolled his eyes and huffed. "Alright, alright," he muttered. Vader's hand was still on his forehead, cool and comforting. As he drank, Luke felt his headache dissipate, as if the membranes keeping out the pain had been stitched back together.
"Does that feel better?" Vader asked knowingly.
"Yeah, yeah. It does." Despite his tone, Luke smiled.
"What was it you were going to ask? A dream?"
"Oh! It was…" He trailed off, reaching back. "It was—something about mother." Had it been? He wasn't sure what it had been at all. "Nothing. It was just a dream. Sorry." He flushed.
Vader's hand moved from his forehead to stroke his cheek. "Do not apologise," he ordered. "She would love you. It is the greatest tragedy in the galaxy that you have not yet met her."
Yet. She was dead, but his father always spoke like this. The Sith believed in no afterlife, but Vader seemed unable to bear the idea that she could be gone from him so thoroughly. That Luke could follow her, one day.
"I know," Luke said.
His father had to leave on his next mission—an inspection of how the Avenger was faring under her new captain—the next day. This time, he refused to go without Luke.
"If you are taken ill again," he insisted, "I must be there. I will not risk you suffering alone as you did once more. If you are not safe even in dreams…"
Luke went with him.
Since Luke was still a secret from the Emperor, known only to the most loyal officers Vader had recruited in his coup, he couldn't let his face be seen. If he was in any way recognisable, his father said, that put him in danger. He tagged along behind him, forbidden from speaking, wearing the large, complex helmet of a TIE pilot. It narrowed his perception dangerously, judging by how often he almost bumped into Vader.
When he was finally on the Avenger's bridge, however, it was easier. She was engaged in a ship-to-ship battle against a small Rebel cell found on Mimban, and Luke kept his gaze on the flashing lights, the snuffing of lives beyond the window. It wasn't soothing, but it was unnatural enough to be noticeable and grounding. He'd seen this before, he thought, but reacted with fear and horror.
His head began to ache; his stomach began to twist.
"…in the year since the unfortunate dismissal of Captain Needa, we have had a restructure of the Avenger's staff, Lord Vader. This includes the TIE squadrons. I believe they are faster and more efficient in their current situation, but I had hoped to gain… your thoughts on it?"
The captain's voice trailed off at the end as Vader turned away from him entirely. Luke glanced away from the exploding ships to see his father watching him; he could feel his concern. His pain faded, as did his residual horror. They were just Rebels. They deserved this.
"It is adequate," Vader said shortly. "As is everything on this ship. You are far from the prestige of the Executor, and I will be assigning many higher skilled captains to assist you in your work accordingly. But you are more competent than Captain Needa was."
"Thank you, my lord. His final failure was unforgivable; the loss of—"
"I must take my leave," Vader interrupted. "With me," he ordered Luke.
The captain was left staring after them, but Luke couldn't regret leaving early. This whole errand was, ultimately, a chore. And while he'd been tempted to hear about the new configurations of the TIE squadrons, he knew that his dream of flying for the Empire was unrealistic so long as his condition persisted. His father would never let him risk himself like that.
It wasn't until they were in the shuttle through hyperspace back to the Executor that Vader spoke to Luke. "It was a dull, utterly irrelevant and meaningless task"—he sounded like he was trying to convince him of something—"but one that must be done. At least it was safe for you."
Luke thought back to the TIEs. How they'd destroyed the Rebels so methodically, like a swarm of antibodies against an invading virus.
"Last week," Luke said. "When Piett walked me back to my room, he said that he would find and punish the Rebels who did this to me." Vader stiffened. Luke watched, puzzled. "What did he mean, Father?"
"Piett should not have spoken of that. It was outside of his rights."
"He was trying to be kind," Luke pushed. "What did he mean?"
Vader drummed his fingers on the console and stared out of the viewport. He did not dare to look at Luke in the co-pilot's seat.
"Your condition," he said. "It was brought about by a Rebel attack."
"I don't remember that."
"The medics who rescued you told me that the stress of it would likely see your brain erase the memories. I was occupied with a battle on the bridge, but the battle was to obscure the assassins who crept inside. They must have heard how powerful you were growing and feared having to face you in a fair fight. You were stabbed through the stomach and tossed into the trash compactor like refuse"—Vader growled the word—"where your skull slammed into the wall hard enough to crumble. You were rescued, but the Rebels were not captured."
Luke's hand drifted to the back of his head, his other to his stomach. He sat back in the co-pilot's chair. "I should have died," he murmured. "It's a miracle I didn't die."
His father said nothing, but his silence shrieked.
"Father?" Luke pressed. "Why… why didn't I die?"
Another few minutes—slow, careful, awkward. Finally, Vader said, "You did."
"How is that possible? I'm—"
"Alive," Vader agreed. "And I will keep you that way." He finally turned to Luke and leaned forwards, seizing his wrists in his durasteel grip. "I am the son of the Force. I was promised that Death would bow to me, yet it did not, so I forced it to. But it continues to try to take you."
Luke tried to pull away from his father's grip so he could touch his head again, but it was too strong. "My condition…"
"I am studying everything I can for how to resolve it. Without my power continually pushing your body to hold itself together, it deviates back to the injuries that killed you."
"The pills?"
Vader's grip softened. "Do nothing," he admitted. "They make it so you need not experience the pain, while others can rush you to the medbay to maintain you until I can reach you."
"I felt my stomach start to hurt on the bridge. Is that why you…"
"I suspected you might, in that situation. But I insisted you come with me so I could solve it there and then, before you suffered needlessly."
"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Luke whispered.
"Your brain knows that you would be miserable if you remembered your death. I did not feel it prudent to remind you so rudely of it."
"I'm dead."
"No, Luke." Vader finally released his wrists to stroke his cheek again. "You are not dead. That is the miracle we must preserve. You… are alive."
When they returned home, Vader had an immediate summons from the Emperor to attend to, while Luke retreated to his bedroom to sleep. He did not sleep. He lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, trying to wrack his brain for any memory of his death. Perhaps that was the twinge of familiarity he'd had watching the starfighters from the bridge… but he did not remember what that familiarity had entailed. There was no reason he would have it.
It meant that he was still awake which his father returned. His foul mood filled the Force like the stench of rotting food.
"The Emperor has taken interest in the young pilot who apparently accompanied me on this mission," he bit out. "He must have a spy on the bridge."
"The captain?" Luke offered. "Why would he be interested, anyway? You shouldn't worry—he doesn't even know you have a son."
"It could not be the captain. He is far too afraid of me—as well he should be, after how poorly Captain Needa served me."
"What does this mean? Why are you afraid?"
"Because I have yet another mission to attend to," he spat. "The construction of the second Death Star is a waste of time, and yet I must spend my days running after it."
"The second Death Star?" Luke asked.
Vader looked up, like he hadn't meant to say that aloud.
"What happened to the first?" His best guess could only be— "Was it destroyed by Rebels?" Horror, again, pooled in his gut. He imagined his father flying through the trenches, getting shot out the sky…
"No," Vader said. Luke hadn't realised his head had started to hurt until Vader reached out to engulf him with the Force. It seemed his unravelling was brought about by worry, then, if just imagining his father shot out of the sky would trigger it. "It was destroyed due to the incompetence of those who built it. And yet Palpatine insists on another."
Luke nodded, satisfied. His head no longer ached. "When do you have to leave?"
The answer was: too soon. Luke waved goodbye to his father yet again and tried to calm the worry in his heart.
Stupid, selfish worry. He could survive without his father. None of this changed anything about his instinctive desire to stand without him, to prove his own strength and independence. Why that was such a need for him remained a mystery, but it was.
And besides. If worry brought on his relapses, then worrying about his father's absence would be the only thing that created the problem.
So, Luke bade farewell to him and watched his shuttle depart from the hangar just underneath the bridge. He stood at the viewport for a long time after he watched him jump to hyperspace, observing the glinting of starlight on the great bulk of the Executor's hull. She was a beautiful ship. Watching her was soothing.
What would this Death Star his father was overseeing look like? He couldn't imagine it would look nearly as elegant, like a knife cutting through the dark fabric of space. He tried to imagine it nonetheless and thought of a sphere the size of a moon. He immediately dismissed it as preposterous.
But it had existed, surely? Something nagged at his brain, and he was too distracted by it to notice the incoming pain. Alone, totally, for the first time in a while, he let his thoughts unravel to their end:
That image. A massive space station. A system full of debris. Look at the size of that thing, he thought to himself, and then didn't know why he'd thought it.
What was a Death Star anyway? The name wasn't indicative of anything good, which fit with something that Palpatine built that his father disapproved of. Palpatine was cruel, while his father was not. But Luke thought, and could not shake the thought, that it must be meant for mass destruction on an inconceivable scale. Entire planets. But there would be no one planet they would want to—
Alderaan. It jabbed into his mind like a needle drawing blood. What… why…? He wasn't even sure he remembered what Alderaan was; the word was unfamiliar. His father and Piett had certainly never used it around him. If it was a planet, the fact he had never heard of it must mean it was remote. Perhaps it was even uninhabited. Why, then, would it matter that it had been destroyed? Who would care, if it was so remote?
Luke cared. Or rather, Luke had cared. The disconnected anger that surged inside him suddenly made him aware of the physical state of his body, the agony in his stomach, his head. He stumbled back to land on the sofa, still staring at the Executor below him in all her glory.
A flash of terror went through him at the sight of her. He couldn't say why.
He should stop this. His father had been gone for less than an hour, and Luke was already upsetting himself to a life-threatening extent. But he kept pushing; something compelled him on. Who would mourn? Who had mourned? Who had Luke mourned with?
When he remembered Leia, it was like his raw, resurrected heart gained something it had been missing. It finally started to beat properly.
Beat, and beat, so the blood trickling out of his stomach came in waves. He doubled over, pain and confusion twin dancers in his spinning brain. The button to alert his father and Piett of another incident was on the table, less than a metre away, but Luke had no desire to reach for it.
Leia. Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. A fierce, brown-haired woman who wore her hair in braids…
And who else had been at the Death Star destruction? Because it had been destroyed by Rebels. He bled with the certainty of it. His father had lied.
His father had lied.
Biggs had been there. Biggs—a dark-haired, moustached man who used to play with Luke on a sandy… hill. Dune. It hadn't been Zevulon Veers. It hadn't been a beach. It had been Biggs Darklighter, on Tatooine, and on Tatooine had been—
Uncle Owen. Aunt Beru.
Old Ben—and from there followed Yoda.
Han had been on Tatooine. Chewie. The droids.
When had he last seen them? When had he ended up here, with his father, Vader having to resurrect him from a Rebel attack? When had he discovered his father at all?
Luke! Luke, it's a trap!
The Force is with you, young Skywalker…
Luke's eyes flew open. He wanted to be sick.
But you are not a Jedi yet.
It was a miracle he made it to the hangar. Half-conscious at best, leaving a trail of blood, noise, and possibly even guts, he thundered through the Executor like a rampaging bantha. But he didn't need to be subtle. He just needed to be fast.
Once the everyday officers onboard realised that Luke Skywalker was in their midst, not even Vader would be able to make them forget it.
There was a Lambda-class shuttle in his father's private hangar. Luke raced on board, slopped himself into the pilot's seat and threw his hands over controls already red and slick. The landing ramp came up. The thrusters engaged. The hangar doors were still open, but he realised with a moment of panic that he needed permission to leave, or else they'd tractor him back in. He'd seen Vader—his father—use his own private permission codes when they went on joyrides together, though he didn't think Vader knew he'd seen that. He punched one in.
Let them baffle themselves over why two of Vader's codes came through in the same hour. There were a thousand potential reasons, and the Empire's policy was to not ask questions.
He took off, cursing the stupid slowness of Imperial slugs. It drifted airily out of the hangar even as Luke pushed its speed to its limit, every second drilling into his head. He could barely think.
His comlink—not his, the comlink Vader had given him—was chiming. He answered before he could think not to.
"Luke?" Piett asked. He sounded worried. "The blood sensors in your quarters triggered. Are you alright? Did it happen again? I've already contacted your father…"
There were blood sensors in his quarters? It made sense—Luke wasn't always in the state to get to the button—but it hammered something home. He hadn't known about them.
"I just got alerted that one of your father's codes was used to leave the hangar. Luke, I repeat: are you alright?"
Luke was out of the hangar by now, thank the Force. He jabbed coordinates—any coordinates, any at all; Tatooine?—into the navicomputer and watched it start calculating. Two minutes til freedom.
How many minutes til death?
"Your father is on his way back here," Piett kept saying, apparently hearing Luke's hyperventilating as a sign that he needed such reassurance. "Sir, please, if you can tell me—"
"Are you sure you want to call a Rebel sir, Admiral Piett?"
Piett was silent for only a moment. He was too disciplined to let things like surprise shake him. But that moment stretched out forever, as Luke stared at the calculating navicomputer.
"Skywalker," Piett said finally, sharp and commanding. "Return to your quarters immediately. If you are indeed experiencing another unravelling, you will die without immediate attention from Lord Vader."
"Let it happen," Luke snarled. He wanted to unravel it all. The secrets, the lies, the memories that had been balled in a tiny corner of his mind, the cells that stacked together so carefully to form a healthy human being…
"I am sending TIE fighters to escort you back to the hangar—"
"Belay that order, Admiral," ordered another voice. Luke's heart swooped. Vader had been patched in. A moment later, he saw his shuttle dive back into realspace. He must have turned around immediately when he received Piett's alert. "Luke, return to your quarters at once."
"I have my kriffing memories back. Don't act like I'm your son."
"You are my son." He sounded remarkably calm, though Luke could sense the rage and fear roiling in him.
"Don't lie to me."
"You know that I am not lying."
"Then why would you—" Luke suppressed a scream. Fathers didn't do this. "Was everything a lie? I died on Bespin, didn't I?"
"You… fell."
"I jumped."
"Your skull shattered against the bottom of the shaft simultaneous with a weathervane impaling your torso. Your body was long cold by the time I retrieved it, and yet you live."
"You wiped my memories! You bound my life to you!"
Every time he had started to remember the truth, pushing up against the bounds of Vader's power, his body had come apart again. Back to the corpse he had been. Back to what he'd decided to be rather than his father's dutiful Sith son—a choice that Vader had robbed him of.
"I saved you, Luke. It is a miracle that you are alive. I will not have you risking yourself again. Return, instantly."
"No!"
His father's cool tone once again belied the intense desperation Luke could sense. "Do you think this is the only time you have remembered?"
Luke took in a sharp breath.
"You will return to me one way or another. Come back. I do not wish you to experience the pain you are currently in."
"Never," Luke hissed.
Vader didn't hesitate. "Very well. Admiral, fire when ready."
The words snapped through Luke. When he finally registered what they meant, it was too late. The Executor shot at him, straight for his engines, and he was folded in an embrace of hot metal and flame.
Luke opened his eyes and groaned. He felt like he'd been cooked alive, torn apart cell-by-cell, then hastily reassembled.
"You were," Vader said tightly. He had his hand wrapped around Luke's, sitting quietly at his bedside. "It is a miracle you yet live."
"Father." He turned to him and tried to smile with sheer relief through the bacta patches on his face. Reached up a hand to touch them. "What happened? Do you have a mirror?"
Watching him carefully in case it upset him, Vader reached for the tiny mirror on the stand beside the bed. Luke looked at himself. At least his whole face wasn't burnt: the bacta mainly slathered his cheeks. His hair had largely grown back, thick and dark brown, which was a miracle if he had been cooked alive. Under one of the bacta patches, he could see his beauty spot had regrown, exactly in the same place as his mother's.
"The Emperor found out about your existence," Vader said. "He… attempted to assassinate you. Your ship was destroyed."
Luke swallowed. "What did he do to you? Are you alright?"
"I am well. I killed him."
Luke's brows creased. "How? How long have I been out?"
"A month," Vader said casually as Luke gaped.
A month had dropped out of the galaxy, just like that. While he was unconscious, the Emperor had died. He sat back, head spinning.
"I have already announced you as the new prince. Nobody can deny you are my son—you are a part of our empire." That last sentence was said intently, almost sinisterly, but Luke's head was still spinning.
"Are we heading to Coruscant, then?" he asked, sitting back. A plan for the future would be reassuring. He'd never been to Coruscant, and the idea of the planet seemed magical in his mind.
"Not yet. We are going to Naboo."
Luke frowned. "Naboo? Why?"
"Because I am certain, now. You are ready. I am ready. And the Empire needs an Empress." Vader stroked Luke's cheek—the cheek with the beauty spot on it. "Luke. It is time for you to finally meet your mother."
